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Old 08-07-2017, 12:22 PM
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BEC BEC is offline
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I'd been meaning to take a picture like that myself (the three nose cone comparison). Maybe I don't need to now. I notice he says the fatter blow-molded cone came from an Alpha II kit (and they do appear there first, based on what I've come across) but they also are in "regular" Alphas as you know. His suggestion that he saw one in an X-Ray kit makes me wonder what other models that would have used a BNC-50K might have got the plastic version in the 1982-1990 time frame....sheesh, another bunny trail.....

Another thing I've noticed in this recent gathering up of sample Alphas of different vintages is that the Chinese-made version of the current nose cone has less molding flash and smoother seams between the mold halves. Not sure I want to say it out loud like that but the samples show it pretty clearly. Maybe I need to shoot that picture. The last of the "made in USA" Beta Series Alphas with the narrower blow-molded nose cone have pretty rough ones.

I agree that the transition from the fatter to slimmer blow-molded cone coincides with the four-year span that had the catalog description mention "red, white or blue" nose cones. Which leads me to wonder which version of the blow molded cone one got if they got one with a white nose cone in that time frame (1989-1992 catalog time frame).

tbzep earlier in the thread speculated that the original PNC-50KA nose cone mold may have gotten damaged and that's what drove both the new one (with the revised shape) and the option of the Alpha III cone. That seems a plausible explanation for both the option of Alpha III cones and provides the opportunity for the replacement mold to have had a different shape.

I wish there was someone with firsthand knowledge we could ask about what happened then.....
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